Barclays launches new ETFs Friday

CBS.MarketWatch.com

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- Barclays Global Investors said it will launch its first four exchange-traded funds on Friday as part of an overall effort to launch 47 funds that track various indexes and sectors by the end of July.

Exchange traded funds, or ETFs, are essentially index mutual funds that trade intraday like stocks. These index "tracking stocks" are often popularly referred to as "spiders," in honor of the Amex SPDR
SPY, -0.11%
the first ETF, which follows the Standard & Poor's 500 Index
SPX, +0.01%
.

The new Barclays funds are dubbed "iShares." When the iShare S&P 500 Fund hits the streets on Friday, at 0.09 percent it will have the lowest expense ratio of any such fund available. SPY has an expense ratio of 0.12 percent, and the Vanguard 500 Index (VFINX) Fund, the world's largest index fund with more than $100 billion in assets, carries an expense ratio of 0.18 percent.

The Vanguard Group recently announced that it would be coming out with ETFs of its own, including one based on the Vanguard 500, but had not determined fees. See related story.

The remaining iShare debutantes coming out on Friday will mimic the Russell 1000
RUI, +0.01%
, the Dow Jones Internet index, and the Dow Jones U.S. Technology index.

Barclays also plans to launch 10 more ETFs on May 26, including those that track the Russell 2000
RUT, -0.07%
and Russell 3000
RUA, +0.01%
indexes, as well as two sector funds covering telecommunications and financial segments.

Final introduction of the Barclays tracking stocks will take place in June and July, the firm told CBS MarketWatch.

Further, Barclays' existing single-country ETFs, known as Webs, will now be known as "iShares MSCI." Each of these tracking stocks follow the Morgan Stanley Capital Index for the respective country that it covers.

Barclays, a unit of Barclays Bank PLC
BCS, +0.26%
launched the first single country ETF last Friday with the new naming convention, iShares MSCI South Korea. Three more are due in June, Barclays said.

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